Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em...

I won't make a habit of posting on the weekends but I thought I'd share my most recent pack buying/busting experience.

I was talking cards with Matt from over at Once a Cub at work on Friday and we decided to go check for some Opening Day on our lunch break. Normally, I am a pretty frugal collector and don't buy blasters. I like to open the occasional pack but would much rather pay for just cards I want.

We are both interested in completing the set, and at half the price of any other blaster, we each picked up two figuring we could swap our dupes. Well, that was the plan on the way to Wal-Mart. We ran out of time on our lunch break and didn't get a chance to open anything up.

A little more banter at work led to Matt automatically claiming any Cubs I pulled and me claiming his Nats. I upped the ante a little further and asked if he wanted to play pack wars, winner gets the whole blaster. Neither of us had done anything like this before.

We didn't have a Beckett or anything to declare a book value winner so we decided to make the pack winner measured by something concrete. Highest base card number won the pack. Most pack winners claimed the other's whole blaster box.

As you may be able to ascertain by the lack of photos in this post, I didn't win. Either box. I didn't keep track of the finals scores but I believe I lost the first box 7-4 and the second box 6-5. The second box was especially close as one pack I lost was initially a tie when we both pulled the same high card. But his next highest card was higher than mine. That box could have gone either way.

Oh well. Twenty bucks down the drain. It was kind of fun though. I probably wouldn't have done it with a regular $20 blaster. And I don't know that I'll do a winner take all again but I would be open to a pack vs. pack showdown. At least then I could have walked away with a couple of packs.

Rather than waste any more money, I'm going to head on over to eBay and just buy the complete set.

Anybody else have other ways they play pack wars?

Sorry!

Sorry, I've missed a few days. I haven't given up, I've just run out of scanned cards. I have a decent sized stack to get me through another month or two, just have to find time to scan them in! I should be back to some regularly scheduled post by next week.

Thanks for your patience!

Ty

2012 Opening Day Jhoulys Chacin

If you had asked me before this post what it would take to lead a league in Walks, I would have said 100 easily. Maybe 125? When I saw the red 87 on the back of this Jhoulys Chacin card under the Walks column, I was quite surprised.

 

 

Turns out, I had a pretty good reason to be. That few amount of Walks hasn't led a league since the strike-shortened 1995 season when Ramon Martinez of the Dodgers led the National League with 82. Which incidentally, wasn't even in the top 10 of Major League leaders. Yep, in 1995 at least ten American League pitchers had mre Walks than Martinez's National League leading 82.

 

I only found one non-strike-shortened season where the league leader had fewer than Chacin's 87 Walks. In 1992, David Cone of the Mets had 82 Walks and led the National League. In 1981 (a strike season), Jack Morris led the American League with 78 Walks. No other American League leader has thrown fewer than Chacin's 87.

 

I think I knew this somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain but it still makes me do a doubletake. Nolan Ryan is not only the All-Time Strikeouts leader but also the All-Time Walks leader with 2,795. He led his league multiple times in Walks and twice crossed the two hundred Walk threshold.

 

I guess what I'm least surprised about is that Chacin pitches for the Rockies and led the league. I would think pitchers in Colorado have to do some extra special pitching to avoid giving up the long ball. And with all that painting of the corners, you're going to have quite a few that miss too. Thus its no surprise either that former teammate Ubaldo Jimenez was in the top 10 in Walks in each season he was with Colorado.

 

Or maybe I just made up that justification and there's correlation but no causation. But it makes sense to me...

 

2001 Topps Greg Maddux

Ok, so maybe Greg Maddux doesn't strike you as a "surprsing" league leader. But when I saw all the red italics and diamonds on the back of the card, I was a bit awestruck.

 

 

Its not just the "perfect attendance" categories as I like to call them where you pile up stats just because you're healthy enough to go every five days. Sure, he was piling up the Games Started, which led to a lot of Innings Pitched. But only once (as of the back of this card, didn't look to later seasons) did he lead the league in Runs. Of course, that was a season with the Cubs...

 

And he never led in Earned Runs or Walks. In fact, while he was raking in the Innings Pitched, he was Completing Games, throwing Shutouts and leading the league in ERA! In his fifteenth season, he tied for the league lead with 3 Shutouts.

 

This guy was in his mid-30's and still dominating the league. He was in the top 5 in the National League in WHIP, Wins, Complete Games, Games Started, Innings Pitched and all kinds of ratios that show how few Walks he issued.

 

The blurb on the back mentions that "Greg's 180 wins is the majors' most over the last decade." Really? Nobody else managed to average 18 wins a season for the past 10 years? *Sarcasm*

 

Guaranteed first ballot Hall of Famer. I think the only thing that keeps him from being a unanimous decision is his lack of World Series rings because he has enough individual hardware to start his own museum.

2011 Opening Day Felix Hernandez

Pitching categories are a crazy thing. When I was younger, wins and strikeouts were used to determine a pitchers worth. The more, the better. They still do but other categories like ERA and WAR and WHIP have a little bit more say. Today's card is a good example of  that.

 

 

In 2009, Felix Hernandez tied for the American League lead with 19 Wins. Neither Hernandez, nor Justin Verlander or CC Sabathia (the other two 19 game winners) brought home the Cy Young Award that season. Instead, it went to 16-game winner Zack Greinke, who happened to lead the American League with a 2.19 ERA, 10.1 WAR and 1.073 WHIP.

 

But enough about Greinke because this post is about King Felix. He followed up his 2009 campaign with a less than stellar 13-12 record in 2010. But a closer look reveals he just didn't get enough team support. Hernandez lead the American League with 249.2 Innings Pitched, 6.8 WAR (for Pitchers) and a 2.27 ERA. He was also second with a 1.057 WHIP. So despite not even cracking the top 15 in Wins and barely maintaining a .500 record. Hernandez brought home to the 2010 Cy Young Award.

 

1989 Topps Frank Viola

Last week, I featured a Twins pitcher who led the league in Losses in 1988 . Today's post is a teammate of Bert Blyleven's, Frank Viola. As rough a year as Blyleven had, Viola more than made up for it.

 

Despite leading the league in runs and eaned runs during previous seasons, Viola continued his 1987 World Series MVP ways by winning an Major League high 24 games in 1988, 3 more than American League runner-up Dave Stewart's total. This led to Viola winning the Cy Young award with 27 of the 28 first place votes.

 

 

I was particularly impressed by the 1988 Monthly Scoreboard chart on the back of the card. I didn't pay close attention to these types of things on cards when I was younger, but Viola won 6 games just in the month of May. Without looking, this probably comes down to a timing thing (starting on the 1st day of a month and getting an extra start at the end of the month) but it would surprise me for just about any pitcher to get 4 wins in a month, let alone average it over the course of the season like Viola did.

 

 Unfortunately, I looked up the record for most wins in a month and its some ridiculous turn-of-the-20th century numbers. I can see a reliever maybe lucking into 6-7 wins but Rube Waddell and Jack Coombs each won 10 (!) games in the American League in one month. And John Clarkson won an astonishing 15 games in June 1885. He only won 53 games that year, completing 68 of his 70 starts for the Chicago White Stockings...

2009 Topps Gil Meche

There isn't any other red on the back of this card so the league leader designation really stuck out as I was flipping through some cards. After coming over to the Royals from the Mariners, Gil Meche became a workhorse. He tied for the league lead in Games Started in 2007 and 2008, both years with 34. That's one of the benefits of being an Opening Day starter and being healthy all season.

 

In a four-way tie in 2008, I was a little surprised there wasn't a Cy Young award winner in the group. The other leaders included Mark Buerhle (White Sox), AJ Burnett (Blue Jays) and Mike Mussina (Yankees). A couple of All-Star appearances and Gold Gloves, but no Cy Youngs. Apparently being the best pitcher of the year requires a little more than perfect attendance (or making all of your scheduled starts).

 

On the other hand, the National League had an 8-way tie for first, also with 34 Games Started but they had two Cy Young Award winners in Brandon Webb (2006, Arizona) and Johan Santana (2004 & 2006, Minnesota).

 

 

The blurb on the back of the card even references Meche's consistency. Unfortunately, his shoulder couldn't handle the extra workload and started only 23 games in 2009. After starting the 2010 season 0-4 in 9 starts Meche went onto the disabled list and had shoulder surgery. He returned in September but for only 13 innings in 11 appearances out of the bullpen.

 

Rather than have another shoulder surgery, Meche would announce his retirement during the offseason. All this despite a guaranteed contract that would entitle him to $12 million.